


Revival

by wolfalice (redseeker)



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-06
Updated: 2006-09-06
Packaged: 2019-04-13 14:33:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14114412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redseeker/pseuds/wolfalice
Summary: After the events of MGS2, Raiden runs into a familiar face.





	Revival

**Author's Note:**

> This is an extremely old fic, and very much not indicative of my style and general standard of writing today, but I am posting it up here for archival purposes.

I can’t even remember when this began. Almost like those long fitful nights where you don’t know where one dream ends and the next begins, this period of my life -- so separate and different from those before it, from any of them -- seems to have crept up on me in the same way that I have to be when on a mission: unseen, unremembered, undeniable as a bullet to the neck.

“Rose.”

She glances up from her book, catching the serious look in my eyes and immediately hardening her expression into a well-practised mask of amiability. “Yes, Jack?”

“…I think we need to talk.”

 

***

 

Of course, he would have known from the very start. He told me so himself, after meeting her just once.

“I could have told you that,” he had said. I had just blinked blearily at him and made some noise that he took to mean “go on”. “There is nothing inside her. I would be able to smell it: another life. She is empty.”

I had taken a moment to let that sink in; the knowledge that I had been right in my suspicion but utterly wrong in my earlier trust, given blindly despite the all that had happened before. “Oh,” was all I had said.

“You were right to leave her.”

 

***

 

“Jack, wait,” she pleads, grabbing at my sleeve; this, the Rose in my memory, about as real as she had ever been. “Just stay a while, we can talk about this. Think about the b-”

A glare from me cuts her off. It seems her lies are ingrained even to the point where she finds it hard to remember that they’re not working any more. She lets go, shoulders slumping a little.

“Did you really think that I wouldn’t notice?” I ask incredulously. “It’s not exactly the kind of thing someone just forgets about, after all.”

She bites her lip slightly. “Jack… of course not… that’s not it. I shouldn’t have believed them, I know, but please don’t blame me.”

I look away. I think that I want to believe her, if only because that would make things easier, though in retrospect it may have had the opposite effect. “Maybe,” I say, slowly. “Maybe you’re just another pawn like me this time, maybe not. But this time I don’t want to find out, I just don’t. I just… don’t have the energy anymore.”

I can’t think of any other way to put it. Rose doesn’t say anything more as I move past her.

After that came a seemingly endless period of unmarked days spent alone, waiting and hoping for contact from Snake or Otacon, wanting so badly to get in on whatever operations they must be planning, just so that I would have something to do besides think, and drink. Of course, that never happened. It seems battling giant bipedal tanks and unravelling government conspiracies is more of a two man job than I thought. And so I waited, stagnating; a trained killer with nothing to kill, growing more and more restless, unused to being alone. It was almost a relief when I met him again.

The first meeting of many… it wasn’t until later that we became what we are today; as I said, the transition was blurred, unhurried, and indistinct. That first meeting, though, is still as clear as any of our encounters before. The first I knew of it was the dull chink of a blade hitting brick, sticking, now protruding from the wall so close to my face and still shaking from the impact. A moment’s hesitation and then I had turned, already drawing the loaded SOCOM I keep with me at all times now -- more paranoia than precaution, really -- pointing it at an all-too-familiar face. Two more knives were poised in his hand, ready to throw, cold eyes curiously bright in the dark.

“You!” It’s not often that I come face to face with men that I’ve already shot repeatedly, more than one of those times in the head; however, with this guy I’m not sure if I should even have bothered with surprise.

The ghost of a smirk, and a voice like honey on broken glass. “You.” The barest hint of a nod. “I thought I knew that scent; you still move differently from other men.”

I narrowed my eyes and shifted my weight from one foot to the other, suddenly conscious of my every movement. Gun still pointed, I asked, “What do you want?”

His hand began to lower, slowly. “A lot of things,” he said, his tone meditative, softer than before, though only a little. “But from you?” He paused, to think I guess. Was he laughing? “I suppose yet another rematch would be redundant. Perhaps a drink, then?”

A… drink? Like hell. “Yeah right,” I reply, grip on my gun only tightening. As he stepped forward the shadows of his face shifted, and he was easier to study. The clothes were different, of course, though for some reason I found it weird to see him in anything but combat gear, the long coat concealing a formidable supply of small blades for throwing, in addition to the larger knife he kept on his belt. It might have been my imagination, or the shadows, but he looked even thinner than before; his cheekbones were more pronounced, and his ice coloured eyes appeared more recessed and shadowed. The scar, the bullet hole on his forehead was still there, though it looked as though it had at least begun to heal a little. Maybe his body was sluggish when it came to its own regeneration, death making it complacent; it made up for his speed in battle, maybe. Definitely a laugh this time, a sound dark and low in his throat as he put his knives away.

“Perhaps not, then,” he said. “Still, you should ask yourself - what have we left to fight about? Or to fight for, for that matter.”

I tilted my head to one side, frowning. “What do you mean?”

He only lowered his eyes, shaking his head as though I were just some stupid kid he had to humour. “It doesn’t matter.” Then, looking up again, “Are you going to shoot me?”

I hesitated; I could have shot him, but he already had the scars to prove the good it would do. “Why should I trust you?”

He shrugged, a strangely easy, feline movement. “You shouldn’t.” I got the feeling he was still laughing at me, even though I couldn’t hear it. “But I have no reason to harm you, do I?” He just looked at me for a moment, studying me, I think, before relaxing his posture and moving forward. I stepped back, keeping my gun trained on his head, more out of habit than anything else. He just kept moving towards me, not so much walking but stalking, predator’s eyes fixed on me and the hint of a smile on his lips. I knew there was nothing I could do, that I should do something anyway; back away, fire, or both. However, I seemed frozen. He was close enough to cut my throat…

“Relax,” he said. I forced myself to prepare to squeeze the trigger as he reached up… and pulled his knife from the wall. He studied it for a moment; the tip was scratched a little. He frowned before putting it away with the others. “I already told you - I have no reason to do you harm.” With that, he turned and began to walk away, leaving me standing like an idiot, alone in the dark with my gun lowered in confusion.

“Hey… wait!” I called, and - for lack of anything better to do - began to trot after him.

 

***

 

He doesn’t breathe much. It took a bit of getting used to, at first; waking up next to a warm body, but a motionless one. Felt like waking up next to a dead man, until I remembered that that was exactly true. I kind of got used to it after that.

 

***

 

“You’re following me,” he had said, after a few moments of my trying to catch up with him. His strides were measured, easy, but deceptively fast. He barely glanced over his shoulder as he spoke, and didn’t pause.

“No, I’m not,” I replied, despite evidence to the contrary. Feeling as though it wasn’t exactly necessary anymore, I re-holstered my SOCOM and jogged a few steps so that I could walk alongside the vampire… It seems like a very long time ago that I would have found something really strange with that sentence.

“…All right then.”

A few more steps. I didn’t know where he was going, but I felt as though I was waiting for him to do something. He must have stopped me for a reason.

“Why did you attack me?”

“Hmm?”

“You threw a knife at me,” I pointed out.

“Oh, that,” he said. He didn’t sound too concerned about it. “I didn’t attack you.” He saw my expression and smirked. “If I had attacked you, that knife would have pierced your skull, and you would be dead.”

“…Huh,” I answer intelligently. “…So, what was that? You were just trying to get my attention?”

“I wanted to know if it was truly you. I couldn’t tell until I got closer.”

I paused for a bit, looking straight ahead as I mulled this over. Eventually, I said, “Couldn’t you have just yelled?” The smirk widened into a small, cooked smile. “Right. I know. That’s not really your style, is it?” I went on, my tone openly sarcastic.

“You know me too well,” was all he said in reply.

The first time I ever saw him, he was sucking the blood out of some poor Navy SEAL, the bodies of the others he’d killed strewn around the room or leaning against the wall in the corridor outside. The place had reeked of blood and fear -- scents familiar to me, but inexplicably so at that point. I was unarmed; at the time I hadn’t even questioned the fact that they’d sent me into a war zone without so much as a peashooter. The first time he saw me, he had hissed like some kind of animal, his eyes still slightly hazed from blood intoxication. He’d made sure the first thing I noticed as he turned was the knife… When he spoke, I’d felt a definite shiver.

_“Five today… Or rather… six?”_

He would have killed me. Not an ideal start to a relationship, I know, but that’s how it happened. I’ve tried the ideal way of doing things, and just look where it got me. Duped into becoming the government’s newest weapon, with nothing to show for it but an ex-girlfriend who’s being paid to keep calling me and a baby that doesn't exist.

He killed Emma Emmerich. I shot him in the head. I tried to kill Fortune; sometimes I think it’s almost worse that I couldn’t do it. Either way, it doesn’t quite balance out, but maybe it’s close enough.

He’s here again tonight. Just like the first time, only somehow better because now he knows just where to kiss, how to touch in just the right way to make me weaker than a soldier should ever be, make me give up my defences one by one by one until he can simply drink me up altogether. He moves like a shadow, all fluid grace and poise like a dancer. I flail in an imitation of grace and bite my lip.

“Ah… Vamp…” I don’t want to give in to this, I can’t allow myself to let my guard down so much, not with him, but I’m already lying here arched on the bed and he’s sliding down my body, his hands ghosting over every inch of my skin and his lips and that tongue and _oh God_ … I gasp, eyes wide open and my fingers gripping at the sheets. He raises his head to look at me, and his eyes appear that much brighter in the dark. He licks his lips, and I know it’s too late.

“Only a little bit… one bite?” His lips are at my throat again, tips of teeth just teasing the skin, and he’s close enough for his voice to rumble in my gut as he speaks. I’m hardly in a position to argue…

 

***

 

“You know what my comrades used to call me, when I was a kid?” I ask later, my tone bitter as I remember my father’s words. “Because my kill count was so much higher than anyone else’s… they used to call me Jack the Ripper… The White Devil.”

He seems to think about this for a moment. “Hmm…” He nods. “Pretty apt, don’t you think?” he says, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice, as usual. “A devil and a vampire. You could almost say we belong together.”


End file.
